One Strange Trip

Early Morning - May 9, 2012 

I was at happy hour. It was loud and the location seemed familiar, but judging by the look on my face I was confused as to why I was there. I was focused on the crowd. I thought I kept seeing my friends in the distance but as I moved closer to them they morphed into strangers. I grew increasingly frustrated and walked up a long staircase. I found myself in a dimly lit room with an oak bar and large paintings on the wall. I was looking at a gaudy gold picture frame wondering where I could get one for my condo when I heard a deep voice say “Julie, I’ve been looking for you”. I turned around expecting to see one of my friends, and there was nobody there.  A large mirror hanging behind the bar drew my eye up to a missing ceiling tile. A scaly snake with large black diamonds along its back lowered itself down from the ceiling and looked at me. It flicked its tongue and said “You are not going to find anybody here that you are looking for”. I really wanted to run downstairs but instead I just stared at the talking snake and asked why it had been looking for me. The snake grinned at me and bared its huge cartoonish like dagger-shaped teeth. I was startled, but once again I didn’t move. I just watched the snake as it bobbed and weaved in the air above my head while it said “Why do you think I’ve been looking for you”? I didn’t answer because I wasn't sure why a talking snake would be looking for me. The snake, growing impatient with my silence announced, “Julie. I’m going to kill you”. It lunged through the empty ceiling tile while gnashing its teeth. I turned around to start running and then felt sharp pain in my knees. I loudly cursed my Lyme disease joint pain while frantically searching for the door to the stairwell that I had just walked up. The snakes laughter filled the room as I realized there was no door. As the snake lunged at me again I pulled a candlestick off of a shelf with the intention of beating the snake over the head with it, but I ended up watching myself exit the room as the shelf spun around like a secret door in a James Bond movie. I ended up in a brightly lit room with no furniture and no windows. A rumbling noise caused me to look up and I saw the whole ceiling retract and then hundreds of snakes with cartoonish teeth dove out of the ceiling at me. I woke up. I was curled up in the fetal position in my bed with horrible stabbing pain in my knees, and my heart was pounding. I tentatively reached my hand out to make sure there were no snakes in my bed. When I was sure my bed was snake free, I rolled over on my back and saw bright orange neon tarantulas crawling all over the ceiling. I catapulted myself out of my bed and turned on the light. There I was shivering and simultaneously dripping with sweat as I clutched the lamp in my bedroom while looking for signs of the neon orange tarantulas I had just caught sight of on my ceiling. I had a pounding headache, my leg was throbbing and my knees hurt. As everything started slowly coming into focus I blurted out to an empty room, “wow that was alarming, maybe I should take a shower’.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, how did Julie know the neon orange spiders on the ceiling were tarantulas? Trust me, I know my spiders. Every time I go to Arizona to visit Marisa I look for pictures of scorpions on the internet so I know what I have to kill if I see one in my vicinity. Google always suggests that I may be interested in tarantulas too. 

Evening - May 8, 2012 

Red meat is one of the foods I was told to avoid during my Lyme disease treatment, but that did not stop me from going to Charlie Palmer Steakhouse to celebrate Rachael’s birthday. I had been red meat free for six months before indulging in a steak dinner. I could have ordered fish, but I had no intention of ordering fish at a steakhouse. The food was outstanding. I devoured everything on my plate. In fact, if you live in the DC area I highly recommend you go eat there. 

Shortly after our dinner plates were cleared, I got the chills. There I was, teeth chattering, full of goose bumps wondering if they had turned on the air conditioning full blast. My speech slowed down and became slurred, and then I had a fit of uncontrollable laughter that lasted for at least five minutes, maybe longer. Rachael and Miss S had shared a bottle of wine with dinner, and if you were a patron looking over at our table, you probably would have thought the empty bottle of wine had been consumed entirely by me. Once my laughter and slurred speech came to an end, I told the birthday girl we had to press on and order dessert. Three desserts were ordered. Three desserts were eaten. I sampled all three. They were delicious.

Later that night Miss S emailed my sister about the dinner and told her “It was like feeding a Gremlin after midnight”, in reference to my enthusiasm about dessert. A short time after midnight is when I started hallucinating. 

The Aftermath 

In 1998 Oprah was sued by the Texas cattle feeders for comments regarding beef that she made on her show that they claimed defamed the consumption of beef. I am not trying to bad mouth the meat industry here, nor do I have the following or influence on a large international scale that Oprah has, so I feel like I can state the following without repercussion: The steak f*cked me up! 

Is steak the only thing you consumed from your “Do Not Eat” list during dinner? 

No, steak is not the only thing I ate that night. French fries, asparagus (grilled in butter), and sugary desserts were all a part of my dinner. I went all out. Did I mention it was all delicious? 

Why are you singling out the red meat? 

Much like my experience with Chipotle, which was highlighted in the post “Life is Burrito-ful”, after Rachael's birthday dinner I experienced a spike in symptoms, and ended up dehydrated and feeling bloated. Also like my experience with Chipotle I was totally backed up for four days, and swore that I was five pounds lighter once I was fully operational again. Up until the steak dinner I had experimented here and there with eating dairy, gluten, processed sugar and fried food. These experiments all ended like the Chipotle adventure. Not once did my food experiments cause a drop in body temperature, slurred speech, uncontrollable laughter, vivid dreams and hallucinations. 

When I recounted my experience to my doctor at my next appointment, I began by acknowledging that I did not follow his guidance regarding red meat. He nodded and smiled before he said “Makes you wonder what kind of hormones or chemicals ended up in that cow before it was slaughtered and served to you for dinner. Your body is in a very reactionary state right now and something in that meat caused you to have quite a chemical reaction. I would recommend you stay away from red meat moving forward”. 

Duly Noted! 

Lessons From the Kitchen

JULIA CHILD I AM NOT

The Rub

“I don’t think I am going to have enough spices to cover the fish.”

Emily turned to face me while staring at the spoon in my hand and said: “Jules, what are you doing”?

“I’m spooning the spices onto the fish.”

“Um… doesn’t the recipe call for a rub”?

“Yes.”

“You’re supposed to rub it on the fish with your hands.”

“WHAT??? I don’t like touching raw fish”, I said while having a minor panic attack. 

“Jules, didn’t you pick the fish up and put it in the pan”?

“Nope, I stabbed it with a fork.”

“Sorry I missed that.”

I have since discovered that touching raw fish is not that bad, and thanks to Emily I am able to protect my clothing with the lovely apron pictured above that she purchased for me in Italy. 

Reading is Fundamental

Early on in my newfound cooking career I made a batch of blueberry oatmeal pancakes for some guests who were brave enough to let me cook breakfast for them. The recipe called for ½ tsp of Baking Soda. I used Baking Powder.

Reaction #1: “These are great”, exclaimed Rachael as she took another bite.

Reaction #2: “Uh Jules, did you use baking powder in these”, said Jon as he tried not to spit the pancake out of his mouth.

The Power of Alternative Preparation Methods 

Going from zero to one hundred in the kitchen requires purchasing a lot of utensils that someone who previously was master of the microwave and dining out would never know existed. While lamenting about wanting to buy new clothing and shoes instead of dropping money at kitchen stores all over town, I overlooked a couple of key gadgets. 

• One day while on a mission to become one with Gluten free baking I came across a recipe that called for Zest of lemon. I consulted Google in order to find out what zest of lemon meant. I didn’t have a zester, nor did I really want to run out and buy one; so I did the next best thing. I attempted to zest a lemon using a vegetable peeler. This resulted in oblong chunks of lemon skin sticking out of my muffins that were probably visible from space. A few weeks after I recounted the story of the chunks of zest in my muffins, Miss S gifted me with my very own zester for my birthday. 

• Who needs a garlic press when they can peel cloves of fresh garlic, put them in a plastic bag and then mash them up with a meat tenderizer? Yes, this yielded weird shaped chunks of garlic in my food, but that seems to be my signature style. My friend Marisa came from Arizona for a visit at the end of October this past year. She gave me a beautiful apron with cherries on it, and was exposed to my cooking for the first time. Shortly after she returned home, a garlic press arrived in my mailbox. 

I may be lacking in the utensil department, but my kitchen fashion is off the hook. 

Google is My Homeboy 

Don’t you just hate it when you’re in the grocery store and some person paying more attention to their smartphone then to where they are walking bumps into you? I hate it too. Except for when it’s me! 

During the first few months of my cooking adventure I was constantly making lists of ingredients I needed for certain recipes without knowing what the majority of what I was preparing to buy even looked like. Google, and by default my phone, has been my constant grocery store companion ever since I walked into the produce section of Whole Foods and made a complete fool out of myself; I asked where the Leeks were and the produce man pointed directly in front of me to what looked like a scallion on steroids and just smiled as I saw the label that said “LEEKS”. If I had known what I was looking for, I never would have asked! 

I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to YouTube and all of the people who upload videos about washing and cutting every vegetable that is known to man. The first time I made my own vegetable stock it took almost two hours for me to wash and cut the vegetables because I had to watch so many videos. I never realized how complicated cutting and cleaning certain vegetables could be. 

The vegetable knowledge I have gained from Google is just the tip of the cooking iceberg. One afternoon I took a trip down to the local CVS because I was in need of effervescent denture cleaner. Why? Because a simple Google search told me that it would remove curry stains from my pan. And it did! The denture cleaner also makes for a funny conversation piece if nosey people open up my medicine cabinet while visiting the loo. 

Parting Advice

If you can keep your guests laughing and can manage to distract them from noticing that half of an eggshell ended up in their omelette, they’ll rave about brunch and beg to know what the flavorful secret ingredient is. 

*Photography by Nicole S. Not only is she great with the camera, but last year she dared to eat the chunky lemon zest in my gluten free muffins! 

A Healthy Dose of Skepticism

The Skeptics were a group of philosophers whose main idea was that we can’t really know anything for certain about the world around us, or about ourselves. Therefore, we can’t really ever know what is right or wrong, either. 

One afternoon in the early 90’s I announced to my parents that I was getting carsick during long rides and was going to have to start riding in the front so I wouldn’t get nauseous. Seeing how up until that moment I had never complained about motion sickness a day in my life, the whole family was skeptical.

There is no shortage of skepticism surrounding Lyme disease and its treatment, as evidenced by information that I have been sharing in this blog. Take a look at this list of symptoms that can be linked to Lyme disease and/or any of the other tick-borne illnesses that are out there: http://www.mnlyme.com/files/Symptoms_References.pdf

During my initial 3.5 hour visit to the LLMD a significant amount of time was spent going through a list of possible Lyme disease symptoms that was even longer than the list referenced above. The symptoms I associated with Lyme disease from my previous experience, and have also discussed in numerous posts up to this point, fit into the vision, mental capability, nervous system and musculoskeletal system areas of that checklist. It was the other symptoms like motion sickness, night sweats, and toe joint pain that caused my skepticism to kick in. According to my doctor they were linked to the Lyme disease and co-infections I had. It all seemed pretty far-fetched to me, since I had been dealing with those issues for many years. Then a funny thing happened. My body started responding positively during the first two months of treatment and my symptoms, the ones I believed were linked to Lyme disease and the ones I did not believe were linked to Lyme disease, began to subside.

Motion Sickness: Looking back it is bizarre that I suddenly developed motion sickness out of nowhere. Even weirder is that it didn’t bother me 100% of the time while in a moving vehicle. In the months leading up to my diagnosis I experienced some of the most severe motion sickness experiences I’ve had to date. During my commute to and from work I would exit the metro dripping with sweat, feeling really nauseous and wishing I had access to a shower at the office. A couple of times I was very disoriented and concerned that I was minutes away from hurling on other passengers; on one occasion I had to get off the metro a stop early and walk home to avoid such a scenario. A couple of weeks into my treatment the motion sickness all but subsided. After I experienced my first Herx reaction, and the roller coaster of symptom flare-ups began, it has been a mixed bag for me with the motion sickness. Sometimes I am fine, and other times I end up feeling really ill on the metro.

Night Sweats: I can’t remember exactly when I started experiencing night sweats, it’s been an issue for over twenty years, but I remember the first time I woke up not feeling damp and sweaty. It was about three weeks into my treatment. I was amazed because I woke up feeling cold and wanting to turn the heat up and that is the opposite of my usual morning scenario. It was glorious while it lasted, but much like the motion sickness it now comes and goes with the fluctuation of my symptoms. 

Toe Joint Pain: I blamed it on my shoes. I blamed it on all of the running I used to do. I blamed it on tendonitis. Why would I think to associate intermittent pain in my big toe joint with Lyme disease? Are you guys detecting a pattern here?

The list goes on and on regarding the fluctuation of my symptoms that I was skeptical to even link to Lyme disease because they had been a part of my life for so long and are common issues for other people. One of the most frustrating things about my on-going battle is looking back at some of the random stuff that I experienced throughout the years and realizing that it was not really random at all. The symptoms manifest themselves differently in each Lyme patient, they ebb and flow in severity over time when left untreated, and what can be a marker of Lyme disease in one person, can literally just be toe joint pain from wearing flip-flops in another.

The point of me sharing the checklist with you was not to make everyone paranoid about possibly having Lyme disease, no doubt most of you can check off a few symptoms on that list. My point was to show how it can be misdiagnosed or go so long without being diagnosed because a lot of the symptoms of tick-borne infections can be associated with other illnesses, ailments and every day wear and tear.